The Green Man
by Artemis Day
Summary: In her self-imposed exile, Elsa creates so many wonderful things for herself, from a snowman to an ice palace. But none of them could ever match the Green Man.


**A/N: I said I was going to do it, and I did. Too bad it didn't come out quite as shippy as I'd hoped. Loki insisted on being creepy instead of romantic. *rolls eyes***

**We will be back to your regularly scheduled Lokane shipping momentarily. Until then, enjoy this crossover.**

* * *

It's easy being alone when you've spent most of your life that way, but there are still times when Elsa would like a little companionship.

Maybe that's why she creates the Green Man. He's not like her ice sculptures or her snowmen. He's not derived from her power, but from her mind. He walks around her ice palace, admiring the work put into its design and running his hands along the smoothed out walls. Sometimes, he sits quietly by the window, looking out at a cold, snowy mountain range. Elsa tends to keep away when he does this. She never likes looking out.

She thinks if she looks far enough, she might see Arendelle.

* * *

They've never spoken to each other. This is part of how Elsa knows he isn't real.

Because if the Green Man was real, how could he have found her all the way out here? And so quickly?

If he was real, why was she never afraid of him? Why did he fill her with a cool numbness that led her to simply walk out of the room and go make another sculpture the first time she saw him?

Why was it that the one time they made physical contact- the day she was walking up the staircase and somehow didn't see him at the top- she brushed his shoulder and passed right through him?

The Green Man is nothing but air. He is the first of many delusions that will come to wrack her mind the longer she stays in isolation. Pretty soon, she'll been turning him bluer than the sky and giving him some menacing horns to match it. Then she'd have him start lording over the palace and ordering her to kneel before him. Because why not? It's not like she ever deserved to be a Queen. It's not like Arendelle deserved someone so unfit for the throne to rule over them.

It was times like this that Elsa thought most of Anna, and felt the weight of guilt press on her the most. She had abandoned her sister, the one she loved most in this world. Pretty soon, they'd have to declare Elsa dead- no way they'd come out this far to look for her after what she did. The crown would fall to Anna, and she'd have a few short years to prepare for her new rule before she came of age. She'd make so much more of those years than Elsa had. Of course she would. She'd have friends and allies, and maybe even a husband. No matter how much Elsa wished Anna would wait to marry Hans, he had seemed like a good man. He'd make a good king to Anna's queen.

Elsa pounds this into her head for days, sitting pressed against an icy pillar with her dress pooled around her. Sometimes, the Green Man takes the other side, and Elsa can just see him out the corner of her eye.

Sometimes, she thinks about talking to him.

* * *

The Green Man comes and goes as he pleases. There's no rhyme or reason to when Elsa's fragmented mind will conjure him up. She could walk down any hall, turn any corner, and there is a fifty-fifty chance he'll be there, arms crosse, never looking her way, always relaxed like he is the true master of this palace.

His eyes will flick to her as she passes, if only for a second. Those eyes always sending something warm through Elsa's chest. They're the most beautiful eyes she's ever seen. Beautiful and sad.

But Elsa knows where he comes from, and she knows he has a lot to be sad about.

* * *

The first time she speaks to him, he doesn't answer.

It's after Anna came. Before Hans and the soldiers followed.

As Anna and her new friends are chased out, Elsa runs into the largest room she can find. Even having created this palace herself, it's hard for her to navigate. The walls are changing color, reflecting her torrid emotions. It's impossible to bottle them up anymore, try as she might.

_'Conceal, don't feel.'_

_'Conceal, don't feel.'_

_'Conceal, don't feel.'_

What good has that ever done her?

She turns all the way around, makes herself dizzy. He's in the corner of the room. Not walking, not moving, he's just there, stock still and staring at her with those green, green eyes. Somewhere in her clouded mind, she realizes that it has never just his eyes that were beautiful, it was all of him. He's the most perfect man she's ever seen. The kind from the fairy tales she used to put Anna to sleep with, and then secretly read herself in the dead of night. Maybe once, a long time ago, she dreamed of finding a prince like that. She never said it out loud, like Anna would, but it was a nice thought. Who's to say she wouldn't have fallen for Hans herself if her life had been different and she'd met him first.

There are so many what ifs for Elsa.

What if her parents hadn't died?

What if she'd never hurt Anna when they were children and destroyed their relationship?

What if she'd never been born with these terrible powers in the first place?

She wouldn't be here, that's what. She'd be at home, in the castle, warm in her bed, waiting for another party or an outing with Anna and their parents. She would never have needed the Green Man and his constant, silent presence. She would be free, _really_ free. She'd have a life to live.

The ice shines brilliant gold. Darker than before; angrier.

"What do you want?" she asks. Her voice shakes with heavy emotion. All that she has felt since the day she came here. "Why are you here?"

He does nothing. He might not be able to. Subconsciously, she's not letting him move, just stand there and torment her with his lack of true substance.

Before Elsa knows it, she's walking to him, purposeful strides that spread cracks along the symmetrical tiled flooring.

"What do you want?"

Snowy sparks light up her fingertips, shooting into the air to sprinkle gentle flakes over them. They dot his inky black hair in a way they never have before.

This is the closest they have ever been. He's so much taller than her, and Elsa's never been short herself. If he were solid, she could reach out and touch him. She almost does. Warmth tingles her bare skin like she's never felt the touch of a real, living person before. He's becoming too real.

"Go away," she says softly, in place of the scream she had been going to unleash. "I don't need you anymore. I'm fine on my own. Please, leave."

And he does.

He disappears so fast, Elsa can barely register the upturn of his lips, or the merry spark in his eye like there there is some great secret there, and now he's carrying it well out of her reach. Elsa has no time to dwell on that. They are besieging her palace, and she still has a great deal of pent up pain and anger to release.

In the end, it almost destroys her.

* * *

Elsa still sees him, or she _thinks_ she does.

He's in the shadows now. He's there when Hans has her locked up in the dungeons. He's in the ice when Anna gives her life for hers, and all the world is still. He's gone when Anna returns to her, but Elsa can't seem to care about that. She thinks she spots him later, in the crowd when she creates a summer ice rink for her subjects, and Anna needs a little extra help gliding without tripping. It never bothers her anymore. He was there when she desperately and unknowingly needed companionship, even if she never let him become more than someone to fill the rooms with. That she hadn't was for the best. It would be wrong to choose fantasy over reality, especially when the one she'd been running from her whole life could turn out so wonderful.

Perhaps the Green Man will always be there, hovering in the back of her mind, there for Elsa to remember fondly when she has a moment to herself. It's strange that she wishes their last 'encounter' had been a little better. He'd never harmed her, after all. He'd been there when she needed him.

But he wasn't real, and she had to remember that. It was time to let him go.

That night is the first time she dreams about him.

They're in her ice palace. Elsa hasn't been back there since the day she was forced back to Arendelle. Everything is in its proper place, all battle scars erased. She's wearing her ice blue dress (her 'Snow Queen' dress, as Anna has affectionately dubbed it), but for once, her hair is completely loose, draped over her shoulders in waves. She walks with no destination. He's in the side of her vision, coming towards her. At the center of the room, she stops. He's right behind her.

"I said I don't need you anymore." She sounds unaffected, even to her own ears. They say nothing ever surprises you in a dream. She'll be a mess of confusion once she wakes up for real.

He laughs.

She's never heard a laugh like that before, equal parts dark and seductive. Warm hands rest on her shoulders, not truly squeezing down, though Elsa can feel the strength they carry. They're burning her. His breath is hot in her ear, and so very _real_.

Almost like…

"Perhaps it is _I_ who needs _you_, my dear."

He has the richest voice she's ever heard, sending shivers down her spine that she never thought she could feel. Elsa's head turns, her eyes heavily lidded, her lips puckered. They brush against his and-

She opens her eyes.

Her bedroom ceiling meets her.

Gone is the solitary blue ice, a homey brown takes its place.

It takes time for Elsa to sit up. Her body feels like it's made of lead and she is sweating buckets. It's a strange way to be when the windows are wide open and Autumn has descended. Her hair is a mess, though not nearly as bad as Anna's can get when she sleeps in. Elsa pulls herself up amid cracking bones and the ever present need to lie back down and sleep the morning away. She could if she wanted to- the day waits for the Queen as long as she needs it to, but Elsa's never been like that, and she's not in the mood for sleeping in, no matter how much her body disagrees.

She enters her private bathroom, removing the sleeves of her blue nightgown to let it fall at her feet. She may have a quick bath before she has to attend breakfast with Anna and Kristoff. She could use it, the way she's feeling.

She stops dead before the mirror, her heart turning colder than the ice within her. It may be minutes that pass, it may be hours, but no matter how hard she stares or how many times she traces them, those marks on her shoulders can be nothing but handprints. She feels soft indentures, colored light pink and warm to the touch. Her lips quiver, and she can't look away, not even when the black, shadowy dot in the corner crawls to the ceiling , and his eyes appear.


End file.
